1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an endoscope control device, and in particular, to an endoscope control device having a safety maintaining circuit.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, endoscopes have been widely used in the medical and industrial fields.
An insertion portion of an endoscope in an endoscope device is inserted into a body cavity, a thin vessel, and the like. The insertion portion is provided with a bending section which is bendable to follow an inner shape of the body cavity and the like, by a user performing a bending operation at an operation section.
Also, a light guide for guiding illumination light is inserted through from the operation section of the endoscope to a tip end portion of the insertion portion. Moreover, in some cases, an image guide for guiding reflected light from a subject is also inserted therethrough. Further, the operation section is provided with an eyepiece portion allowing for observing with the naked eyes the light of the subject guided through the image guide, and a connection portion of a light source device, for introducing predetermined illumination light into the light guide.
Different types of endoscopes include an electronic endoscope wherein a solid-state image-pickup device is placed at the tip end portion of the insertion portion, or at a tip end of the image guide of the insertion portion, the solid-state image-pickup device capturing light of the subject, which is the illumination light projected from the light guide and reflected on the subject, so as to generate an image signal based on which an image of the subject is displayed on a monitor.
For an endoscope device using, for example, a microprocessor, which is configured to include such an endoscope, various techniques have conventionally been proposed relating to an endoscope device having a circuit for maintaining controlled apparatuses in a safe status against malfunction of the microprocessor, in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 4-40014, and the like.